The Acadian Refugee Camp on the Miramichi, 1756-1761 by Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc translated by John Estano DeRoche in consultation with the author Image 1. Boishébert’s Island (Beaubears Island), Miramichi, New Brunswick Photo by “Fralambert” 2010. Creative Commons Licence 3.0. An earlier version of this article was published in French in the journal Acadiensis. LeBlanc, Ronnie-Gilles. 2012. « Les réfugiés acadiens au camp d’Espérance de la Miramichi en 1756-1761 : un épisode méconnu du Grand Dérangement », Acadiensis XLI, no 1 (Winter/Spring) : 128-168. Based on subsequent research, the author has added new material for this January 2018 translation. This article addresses one of the least-known parts of Acadian history: the experience of families who re- mained in Acadie1 between 1755 and 1764. Most studies of Acadian history have treated this question quite briefly or superficially, preferring to focus on the fate of the families who were exiled to the Anglo- American colonies or to Europe in this period.2 And yet, it is one of the most significant episodes in the legacy of Acadie, since the families who stayed behind constitute a major part of the ancestry of the Aca- dian community of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Canadian region. A great many of these families spent the winter of 1756-1757 at Camp Espérance on the Miramichi River.3 Famine and contagion spread death through the population, already worn down by dislocation, disposses- sion, and flight. How many Acadian refugees were at Camp Espérance during this fateful winter? And how many persons met their end there? Some researchers – including Alonzo LeBlanc and Fidèle Thériault in the 1980s – have already raised these questions and tried to piece together a few partial answers.4 LeBlanc concludes that 600 to 700 people died there that winter, in a population of 3,500 Acadian refugees. Thériault estimates the population at 1 We have retained the French name Acadie in the translation. “Acadia” emerged only in the 19th century as English usage. Before 1755, the British called the land “Nova Scotia” or sometimes “Accadie.” In recent times, the original French spelling has come into increasing use among anglophone researchers and translators. 2 See, among others: Landry and Lang 2001; Griffiths 2005; Faragher 2005. The latter study devotes a chapter to this period, entitled “Chasse à mort! The Refugees, 1756-1760,” 393-415 & 530-532. 3 During our research on this topic for the 2012 publication, we found only a single mention of the name given to the Miramichi refugee camp, that is, “Camp Espérance.” (Translator: in this context, espérance connotes “hope.”) This usage occurs in a document that Placide Gaudet transcribed in 1884, in the Memramcook area. It is a prom- issory note dated 11 Aug. 1758, addressed by the custodian of the royal stores at Miramichi to the widow of Jean Part, for services as a baker “at camp d’Espérance.” See Placide Gaudet to Benjamin Sulte, 23 Dec. 1884, Placide- Gaudet collection, file 1.31-6, Centre d’études acadiennes Anselme-Chiasson (hereafter CEAAC). We use that la- bel in this study. After this article appeared in 2012, however, Rénald Lessard of the Archives nationales du Qué- bec discovered a set of documents concerning French Acadie (present-day New Brunswick) for the years 1751 to 1760. Although the item addressed to Jean Part’s widow is missing there, the collection includes 4,554 others of the same kind. These materials are found in the Archives nationales de France, series V, Grande Chancellerie et son Conseil, sub-series V7, Commissions extraordinaires du Conseil d’État du roi, 346 (hereafter series V7). Dis- covery of these documents has allowed us to flesh out this study, especially in relation to Camp Espérance and the site at Restigouche or Petite-Rochelle. 4 A. LeBlanc 1985, 53-60; Thériault 1986, 1987, 1988. Also, in his study of the Acadian community of the Miramichi region, Maurice Basque provides numbers based on the studies by Fidèle Thériault and by Nicolas Landry and Ni- cole Lang: see Allain and Basque 2005. 2 Image 2. Key sites in the region of Acadie ca. 1755. Prepared by the translator with an open-access outline map. 3 around 6,000, and the death toll at 500 to 800, “according to the sources”5 – that is, Robert Cooney, who numbers the victims at over 800, Bona Arsenault at around 600, James Fraser at 500, and Marguerite Michaud at more than 400.6 Neither Cooney nor Fraser cites sources, but clearly their figures are based on oral tradition; the longer the elapsed time since the event, the more inflated the numbers become. Ar- senault and Michaud offer the reader no specific sources, and consequently, their statistics must be taken as hypothetical.7 Why would these authors put out such divergent numerical estimates? Maybe to dramatize more power- fully the tale of the Grand Dérangement?8 Possibly. We prefer to question those statistics and to try to ascertain more precisely the real number of victims at Camp Espérance in light of the documentation now available. In the first place, very few of those studies refer to primary sources, that is, official documents from those times and especially the censuses or lists of Acadian refugees. Besides that, by basing our analysis on genealogical data now at our disposal for this period,9 we have learned that some accounts have grossly exaggerated the number of refugees at Camp Espérance on the Miramichi in the winter of 1756-1757, as well as the number of deaths. Some statistics Unquestionably, the events leading to the creation of Camp Espérance constitute one of the most signifi- cant chapters in the entire annals of the Acadian people. In June 1755, the British capture of Fort Beauséjour and Fort Gaspareau sounded the death knell for France’s dreams of empire in Acadie, but for the Acadian community, its consequences were utterly disastrous. It meant destruction and expulsion at 5 A. LeBlanc 1985, 56-57; Thériault 1986, 15-16. 6 Cooney 1832, 32-35; Arsenault 2004 (1966), 226; “Notes from Tradition and Memory of the Acadian Removal by Mr. Fraser of Miramichi 1815,” in Gaudet 1996 (1906), 248-249; Michaud 1967, 89. Wright, by contrast, offers no figure for how many people appeared at Camp Espérance (1944, 14-15). Placide Gaudet writes: “A letter from the Bishop of Québec says there were 900 persons in 1757 and 200 of them died in that one winter alone.” Unfortu- nately, he gives no exact reference, and we could not locate the letter or document containing such information. See the Placide-Gaudet collection, 1-31-6, CEAAC. 7 Marguerite Michaud writes (1967, 89): “More than 400 died of destitution and hunger during the winter of 1755- 56, according to Abbé Le Guerne.” In scrutinizing the two Le Guerne letters, we found nothing to that effect, be- sides which, Michaud refers to the wrong winter, since it was during the winter of 1756-1757 that the Acadian refugees suffered this sad fate, and not the winter preceding. 8 (Translator’s note.) Although the expression “deportation of the Acadians” is in extremely wide circulation, we have avoided the word “deportation” when referring to the removal of Acadians during the period, since (in to- day’s English) it might suggest they were aliens in this land, whereas their ancestors had been in Acadie for multi- ple generations. (Note that the term does not carry a similar connotation in French, where “Déportation” is used routinely in this context.) Instead, we use “expulsion” or “the Expulsion” when referring specifically to the ship- ment of Acadians out of their homeland. However, to describe the scope of the broader series of events, the word “expulsion” is too restrictive, by failing to encompass the breadth, complexity, or duration of the disaster visited upon the Acadians. To capture the uprooting of the Acadians in the wider sense, we have settled on the untrans- lated expression most commonly used in Acadian circles, both popular and academic, which is: the Grand Dé- rangement. The equivalent English would be the “Great Upheaval” or “Great Disruption.” The French term, moreover, is now quite widely understood and used among those anglophones who concern themselves with this history. On this entire question of the terminology and the underlying conceptualization (in French), see R.-G. LeBlanc 2005. For readers who speak no French: pronounce “dé” as in daybreak, “ran” like the nickname Ron (keeping the “n” silent), “ge” as in triage, and “ment” as if it were the “mo” in Monty Python (again, silent “n”). 9 These, of course, are the unpublished notes for the DGFA, which Stephen A. White has been working on for more than 42 years. 4 the hands of the British. Within the Acadian population of around 14,100 in 1755,10 the English-controlled territory (peninsular Nova Scotia) accounted for 6,345. In the region of Beaubassin11 and the “Three Riv- ers” – Shepody (Chipoudie), Petitcodiac (Petcoudiac), and Memramcook – there were 2,897. This is a total of 9,242 persons, as claimed by the Abbé de l’Isle-Dieu in a letter to the Minister of the Marine in France, in the fall of 1755.12 The greater part of the Acadian population of peninsular Nova Scotia was expelled between October and November 1755, except for the settlements in the Cobequid region, Tatamagouche, and the Cape Sable area, and a few families in the districts of Pisiquid (or Pigiguit), Minas (Les Mines), and Annapolis Royal (Port Royal). These exiles numbered approximately 5,056, including: 50 from the Lunen- burg area (Mirligouèche); about 1,100 from Pisiquid; 2,242 from Minas (Grand-Pré and Rivière-aux-Ca- nards); and 1,664 from Port Royal.13 Another 1,014 individuals were taken from Beaubassin and the Three Rivers (Shepody, Petitcodiac, and Memramcook).14 And so, from a total Acadian population of 9,242 in peninsular Nova Scotia and present-day southeastern New Brunswick, around 6,070 were ex- pelled to the Anglo-American colonies in the autumn of 1755.